Suspect search prompts lockdown in Lowell

TEWKSBURY -- Five schools in the Belvidere section of Lowell were in a soft lockdown for about an hour early Monday afternoon due to concerns about a potentially dangerous suspect who may have fled through the area on foot after trying to strangle a woman to death at Motel 6, Tewksbury police said.

As of late Monday afternoon, Tewksbury police were still searching for and attempting to identify the male suspect, believed to be about 38, who is wanted on a charge of attempted murder by strangulation of a female in the laundry room at the motel at 95 Main St. just before noon Monday, Deputy Police Chief John Voto reported.

"The victim's OK, and did not require hospitalization," said Voto. "Our investigators are still in the process of trying to identify the suspect."

The suspect was not characterized as armed and dangerous because "he doesn't have any kind of weapon that we know of," Voto added.

Voto declined to give out any more information, including whether the victim and suspect knew each other, while the investigation is ongoing.

Tewksbury police contacted Lowell police to request the lockdown of the schools, Lowell Superintendent of Schools Jean Franco said, because of concerns that someone who may have been dangerous had gone by foot from Tewksbury to Lowell.

In a soft school lockdown, students are kept in classrooms, with movement in hallways kept to a minimum. No one is allowed outdoors.

During the search, a police helicopter was seen flying over a wooded section of the Longmeadow Golf Course in Lowell between noon and 1 p.m., a groundskeeper said.

Separately, the Rogers School and adjoining school central-administration offices were briefly evacuated Monday morning because of an odor of natural gas in the building.

The Highland Street school, which includes pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, was evacuated shortly before 11 a.m. while National Grid and the Fire Department investigated the odor. Everyone was allowed back into the building about a half hour later, after crews determined the concern was unfounded, Franco said.

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